


How Quiet Its Death

by Bittereloquence



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Gun Violence, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Major character death - Freeform, Unhappy Ending, trigger warning applies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:07:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25999498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bittereloquence/pseuds/Bittereloquence
Summary: A fleeting reunion twenty years in the making, yet it's the very last thing the man simply known as Ben Kenobi these days had expected to happen one fateful day in the dusty streets of Anchorhead.
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody & Obi-Wan Kenobi, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan/Infinite Sadness - Relationship
Comments: 3
Kudos: 25
Collections: Star Wars Fanfiction Discord





	How Quiet Its Death

**Author's Note:**

> I simply cannot overstate the trigger warnings enough in this fic. Especially in these tumultuous times where police violence is being highlighted and rightfully brought into focus. Please proceed with caution if you are triggered by such things, major character death and gun violence. This isn't a happy fic. Writing this reminded me of being an eighteen year old baby in fandom writing terrible angsty fanfic. This borrows ideas from Cody's former canon 'ending' where he ended up becoming a bitter old bastard training Stormtroopers on Kamino and hating pretty much everything and everyone. Which was awful enough but then I was like "What if because they failed to stop Starkiller from escaping Kamino he somehow gets even further demoted and ends up on Tatooine?" and well, I needed a quick and easy explanation for how his and Obi-Wan's paths cross again so don't @ me. LMAO

_how pain  
bellows  
without sound_

_how bright  
the glow of a  
a falling star_

_how quiet  
its death_  
-Pavana Reddy

* * *

It had taken the Empire almost twenty years but it seemed it had finally managed to stretch its reach to the Outer Rim and to Tatooine of all places. If Obi-Wan had known they had reached even as far as Anchorhead, he never would have come into town. But the computer system on his Vaporator was down and he needed to get the necessary spare parts to repair it if he had any hope of survival which meant the old mad hermit of the Dune Sea made one of his rare visits to town. 

Ben had noticed the tension in the air but it wasn’t until he had settled in to negotiate with a pair of Jawa’s who had set up a second-hand parts stand that he noticed just how dire the situation was. A patrol of Stormtroopers wandered around the corner and it took every ounce of his self-control to not stiffen at the sight of that chilling white armor. 

They seemed to be randomly stopping people and asking for identification but there was little rhyme or reason to their actions. The first pair walked right past him and the Jawa, seemingly too busy gossiping to notice or care about the ex-Jedi or the scavengers. 

“--new captain is a real hardass. Heard he got transferred directly from Kamino.”

“Kriffin’ clones, they should have decommissioned the whole lot of them after they tried to rebel a few years back.” The taller Stormtrooper groused to his companion. “It’s not like they’re worth much anymore as old and broken down as they are.”

“You obviously haven’t had to attend training sessions with the new captain.”

"Yeah, well, I heard he let that wannabe Sith escape Kamino which is why they stuck him all the way out here to be a pain in our ass so excuse me if I'm not impressed with his list of achievements. I have no interest in dealing with some washed-up has-been clone who should have been decommissioned years ago."

Obi-Wan’s interest was unwillingly piqued at the mention of a clone but the knowledge there was still at least a few _vode_ out there trapped under the Empire’s yoke was upsetting. Every unfortunate brother Kenobi had come across since Order Sixty-Six had been implemented had almost universally been nothing more than a shell of the former man he had once been thanks to biochip’s influence.

And now apparently, there was at least one clone on Tatooine. One who wasn’t universally beloved by his troops if the venom he heard in the Stormtrooper’s voice was anything to go by. It was rare these days to come across one of the original Clone Troopers. So many of their numbers had been spent either during the Clone Wars or its bloody aftermath. 

Ben had heard rumors there had been some sort of rebellion a few years ago on Kamino and that apparently had been the death knell for the clones. As always, the moment he heard the word clone, his thoughts immediately went to the troopers he’d served with, especially to one clone in particular: Cody.

They’d served together for three of the most awful years of his life. 

Obi-Wan Kenobi hadn’t been a stranger to conflict, pain, or death but the Clone Wars had taken its toll on all of them. Even Melida/Daan had paled in comparison to the horrors of the Clone Wars and the amount of suffering he’d seen on such a wide scale. Entire planets had been dragged into a conflict they had never asked for and their inhabitants had suffered for it in the process. 

Their cities had been ruined and reduced to rubble like the once beautiful crystal cities of Christophsis or they had starved to death in droves like the Twi’leks on Ryloth. 

Billions of sentients had suffered, and for what? It was only with hindsight and years to ponder over his actions that Obi-Wan had started to question the part they’d all played in the Clone Wars. If they had simply let the Separatists leave the Republic, would that have been enough to avoid the disaster that led to its own destruction?

On those long nights where he was wracked with nightmares and despair, he could almost bring himself to believe that. But it was obvious the Emperor had been operating behind the scenes for years, perhaps decades leading up to the Clone Wars. Maybe he’d even engineered the war to bring about the violent end of the Republic and the destruction of the Jedi Order. 

They had been too blind, too arrogant to see the Sith right in front of their eyes and the universe had suffered for it. And his friends had paid for it with their lives. 

The Order was gone, a mere bitter memory of the former Republic and their legacy was one of failure and treachery. History truly was written by the victors and the Jedi were doomed to be painted by the cruelest and most unflattering of brushes. In the end, even their clone compatriots had betrayed them. 

He’d heard the Rebellion had been spreading the rumor that there had been a control chip buried in the mind of every clone and that was why they’d turned on their former compatriots. Ben didn’t know what to think of that rumor though there was a small part of him that desperately wanted to cling to it if only because it eased the sting of betrayal. 

That Cody, a man he’d trusted with his life and loved hadn’t tried to murder him in cold blood. 

But the alternative was horrifying in its own right. 

The idea he and all the rest of the _vode_ had their personalities and parts of them that made them _vode_ had been suppressed until they were little more than meat-droids whose only purpose was to follow the orders of this new corrupt government was awful and made him sick to the stomach just thinking about it.

Every clone he’d known had struggled to find some form of identity and personal expression. His friendship with Cody had opened his eyes to just how much the _vode_ had struggled to prove they were more than just livestock created to be cannon fodder for the Grand Army of the Republic. 

Yet in the end, thanks to Palpatine’s machinations, that’s exactly what had happened. 

Their once colorful and distinctive armor that had helped separate a brother on the battlefield had been replaced by the same unending white sea of plastoid as the clone army had been repurposed into the Stormtrooper Corps. 

Nat-born humans had slowly begun to fill their ranks as they replaced the clone troopers who died in the line of duty until finally, there were fewer and fewer clones in the Stormtrooper Corps. These days, it was almost impossible to find a _vode_ still serving in an active capacity of the Empire. 

Ben was realistic enough to acknowledge that despite there being millions of them serving at one point, most had marched off into the afterlife. Whenever he happened to come across a clone, their Force signature was so stifled and unnatural feeling he told himself it was almost a gift. Surely death was better than enslavement for those once-proud men.

He’d tried to make himself come to peace with the knowledge Cody and the rest of the 212th were long gone, either dead or disappeared into the ranks of the Empire beyond his ability to reach. Still, it didn’t stop him from desperately trying to pick out a familiar cadence among the voices of the _vode_ he’d encountered. Thankfully, those were rare and nearly unheard of thanks to the fact the Empire had shown little interest in the Outer Rim and Tatooine in particular. 

The Emperor was content to let the Hutts control this part of space uncontested, though the presence of a Stormtrooper regiment in a backwater village like Anchorhead was concerning. Ben tried his best to disappear further into his hood as he hurriedly tried to finish his negotiations with the Jawa. 

The patrol continued on down the road and he dared breathe a sigh of relief as he exchanged the majority of credits he’d managed to scavenge and save over the past few years. It pretty much wiped out most of his savings to replace the control panel on the Vaporator but he lived mostly off the arid lands of the Dune Sea. And now with the Empire showing a presence even as far out as Anchorhead, Ben knew he would be coming into town even less from here on out. 

Once the Jawa handed over the second-hand computer panel to him, Ben slipped it into a pocket of his robes and turned to start making his way as quickly out of town as he could without drawing too much attention to himself. 

Unfortunately, he hadn’t gotten more than a few meters before a gruff, authoritative voice called out for him.

“You, there, stop! Let’s see some identification.” 

Ben cursed his luck and the general unfairness of the universe at large as he walked on, pretending like he didn’t hear the Stormtrooper’s order when in fact he was quickly examining what his options could be. He of course didn’t have identification thanks to the fact the all biometric and DNA information was stored on identification cards. He knew the Empire had access to all of the Temple's records which meant they would have his DNA profile on record.

He didn’t want to risk exposure but he was going to have to try a Force mind-trick on the Stormtrooper. Thankfully, the street was nearly deserted and even the Jawa had gone back inside their hut to no doubt count its credits. Ben could feel the weight of his lightsaber hanging from his belt, hidden within the folds of his robe. It had been stupid of him to carry it with him into Anchorhead but it wasn’t like he’d expected to find a regiment of Stormtroopers here. 

“Hey! I’m talking to you, old man.” The Stormtrooper barked, with more force and a hint of outraged anger now wending its way through his voice and Ben knew his time was up. He could feel the pair of Stormtroopers hurrying up to him, their boot-steps loud and heavy against the hard-packed dirt of the street.

“I’m sorry? Were you speaking to me?” He plastered a puzzled look on his face and was secretly glad for every undercover mission he’d ever had to undertake because he could see the moment they wrote him off as just a harmless old geriatric. “I’m afraid my head was somewhere else. What can I do for you two fine gentlemen?” 

There had been a time, twenty years ago, he would have tried to flirt his way out of the situation but these days, Ben found it best to present the facade of a doddering, slightly confused old man. The ruse seemed to work because he could see the subtle loosening of the Stormtrooper’s fingers around the stock of their blasters and the way their fingers slid off the triggers. The fact they didn't remove their fingers from the trigger guard all together was pretty much in keeping with the type of lax discipline he’d seen in Stormtroopers over the last few years.

If Boil had been around to witness such poor trigger discipline he probably would have bawled them out right then and there. But in this case, it would hopefully work out in Kenobi’s favor and maybe he wouldn’t even need to use the Force to escape the situation.

“We need to see some identification.” 

So much for that hope. 

“Oh, I don’t think you need to see my identification,” Ben said softly as he drew upon the Force to push that thought into the Stormtroopers' heads with a subtle movement of his hand. “I can go about my way.”

These nat-born troopers had no experience with dealing with Jedi or their mind-tricks so it was surprisingly easy to implant the thought into their minds. He would have had a harder time of it if they had been 212th clones. Even the most basic of regs had gotten the rudimentary training on how to resist some Force techniques while he’d spent hours working with Cody and the officers of his battalion working on their mental shields since they were more likely to face interrogation at a dark Force users' hands. 

Even a clone could be broken but they weren’t nearly as easy to manipulate than weak-willed nat-born troopers like these two.

“We don’t need to see your identification.” The Stormtrooper repeated with that tale-tell flatness in his voice. “You can go about your business.” 

Ben had to fight back the urge to release a sigh of relief and he turned to walk away. 

But his hopes were almost immediately dashed when a new voice reached his ears. 

“Stop right there.” That voice...it was unmistakably a clone because he’d recognize that accented voice anywhere. Kenobi had met Jango Fett himself, the Prime of the clone army and the man had sounded exactly like his millions of clones and It was a voice he still heard in his dreams at night. Yet there had always been subtle ways to tell one clone from another, little verbal tics and cadences that helped to differentiate a clone just as much as his distinctive armor.

But like every other distinguishing trait, those verbal tells disappeared under the brainwashing of the bio-chips until it was nearly impossible to tell one from another. 

Kenobi felt a painful fist close around his heart as dread coiled its way up his back. When he reached out with the Force to probe this new trooper, it slid across the man’s Force signature which was as.impenetrable as a black mirror. Just as had happened every other time he came across a chipped clone, he couldn’t get any impression about the man or his identity. Had no idea who he was dealing with beneath that featureless helmet and it was heartbreaking to consider. 

This could be one of his men and he wouldn’t have known it. It was just another thing the Empire had stolen from the clones.

“You didn’t check his identification.” The clone was wearing a bright orange pauldron signifying he was probably the commander of this squad and the rebuke in his voice was unmistakable. 

“We don’t need to see his identification.” One of the Stormtroopers parroted back those damning words and Ben could practically see the moment realization struck the clone because unlike the Stormtroopers, his hand tightened around his weapon as he brought it up to bear. 

“Let me see your identification. _Now_.” He practically barked the word and Kenobi felt control of the situation slip through his fingers like grains of sand.

“There’s no need for that, sir.” He tried to deescalate the situation with the appearance of serenity. Ben could feel the strength of the clone’s mental shields and he knew trying to use the Force to cloud his mind would be nearly impossible at this point. 

The twitchy way the Stormtrooper CO was acting had a poor effect on the other two Stormtroopers and they somewhat sluggishly brought their own blasters up as well.

“Shut up, keep your hands where I can see them. You, cuff him.” 

That dread had crystallized into something like cold regret because Kenobi already knew how this was going to play out. Someone was probably going to die in the next couple of seconds and as much as he didn’t want to have to harm these men, he wasn’t going to just lay down and die without a fight. 

Not when he still had a job to do. 

When the Stormtrooper started to approach with a pair of binders in hand, Kenobi drew in a deep breath to steel his nerves before Force pushing him back towards the clone whom Ben had deemed to be the most credible threat. 

“ _Jedi!_ ” Somehow the clone managed to pack a wealth of hatred and anger into that single word as he fired at Ben. His first shot went through the shoulder of the Stormtrooper who’d been sent careening into him and the second went wild as his aim was thrown off by having almost 100 kilos of flailing Stormtrooper and plastoid armor slammed into him. 

The second Stormtrooper wildly fired at Kenobi and he practically felt the blaster bolt sear his beard as it passed a scant inch off target. By that point, he managed to draw his lightsaber and blocked the second volley with his hastily ignited blade.

Ben deflected the next bolts back at the second Stormtrooper and he went down with a black, smoldering hole in his chest. By that time, the clone and the first Stormtrooper had recovered. 

A fresh hail of blaster bolts came flying at him as the former Jedi desperately closed the distance while trying to deflect the bolts. He felt pain score its way up his arm and knew at least one had gotten through his guard and the first Stormtrooper went down without a noise as a deflected blaster bolt went right through his head. 

Ben had closed the distance between him and the clone and when he drove his lightsaber forward, it melted through plastoid and human flesh as easily as a hot knife through freshly churned bantha-butter. As long as he lived, the sensation of impaling another sentient being on his saber never got any less horrifying or terrible but Ben knew the man didn’t suffer as he pierced him through the chest. 

He wanted to tell himself it was a mercy. 

That whoever this poor clone had been, he no longer had to suffer like a mindless drone under the Empire’s control. That perhaps his soul could now rejoin the Manda along with the rest of his brothers who had marched on. 

But it wasn’t easy taking another man’s life, especially one who at one point he would have given his life to save. The clone sagged like a puppet whose strings had been cut and fell back into the dirt with a dull thump. There was no blood, nothing but a still smoking black hole in his armor. 

Ben knew he needed to get out of here but as he stood there looking down at the clone, a part of him desperately wanted to seek out the face beneath the mask. Needed to see if it had been one of his men.

A tiny voice buried in the back of his mind screamed it could be Wooley or Boil….oh _Force_ help him….Cody. The dead clone had fallen at such an angle, his helmet’s hermetic seals had already become broken and the helmet was jutted up ever so slightly to show the underside of a deeply tanned jawline. Despite alarm bells going off in his head, the former Jedi found himself kneeling beside his dead enemy and a hand that shook ever so slightly reached out to pull the helmet off to reveal the aged and gray-haired clone who lay there. 

His short-cropped hair was almost completely grey with just the barest hint of the formerly dark black it has once been. His face was seamed with bitter looking lines and wrinkles were carved deep into a forehead Kenobi suspected had spent the majority of almost two decades frowning in some way or another. When his eyes found that familiar scar, now pale with age weaning its way down that all too familiar face, Ben’s brain refused to acknowledge what he was seeing. 

Because if he did, then he would have to acknowledge that he knew that face. Even with the new scars, even what seemed like forty years older than when he’d last seen it, he would recognize Cody anywhere. 

His expression was tortured even in death, not peaceful like the holonovels tried to tell it and his eyes were horrifically blank and staring, all light has gone from them. 

The former Jedi just sort of froze there, unmoving, incapable of processing what had just happened. Cody had been standing right there in front of him after all this time and _he hadn’t even been able to tell_. His Force signature, one Obi-Wan Kenobi could have recognized in the midst of a thousand other clones even with his eyes closed had been so altered and suppressed by the biochip he hadn’t even recognized him. 

It was like being faced with Anakin’s sickly yellow, hate-filled eyes once again and being incapable of recognizing the man he’d loved like a brother. That agony and horror welled up inside of the aged former Jedi and Ben found himself sick all over again. 

He didn’t know how long he sat there too stunned and heartsick to move but eventually, it was the sound of radio chatter growing more urgent and blaring from Cody’s comlink that dragged Ben back to his senses. 

“I’m so sorry, my friend.” Ben managed to choke out around the ball of emotion that had constricted like a band around his throat. His hand shook as he mapped out that familiar scar one last time before he moved to close those unseeing eyes. He couldn’t do anything to ease the misery of Cody’s last few moments of life though and the rictus of pain and horror on the man’s face would no doubt haunt Ben for the rest of his days. 

Ben forced himself into action, pushed to his feet despite his aching knees that threatened to buckle beneath him, and the fire licking its way up his arm from where he’d been scored by blaster fire. He left the bodies there even if a part of him recoiled in horror at the idea of leaving Cody there to rot in the sun but he knew his former commander wouldn’t have cared about such things.

He’d had an enlightening conversation with the man shortly after they’d first met in those painfully early days of the war as they’d watched the dead being prepared for a funeral pyre after a particularly bloody and awful battle. Clones didn’t care what happened to their bodies after they died, either in true keeping with the fragments of Mandalorian culture that had been instilled in them or out of sheer pragmatism, Obi-Wan had never been able to figure out which it was. 

Cody had admitted there was a part of him that wanted to cling to the idea of his _vode_ being able to join the Manda after death, that they had a soul despite the fact they were just clones. But he’d also opined that it didn’t matter one way or another because in the end he just wanted to serve with honor and glory. 

It broke Ben’s heart to know he met his end here on this miserable dustball of a planet but he could only hope that if there had been some part of Cody that still existed underneath the programming and the insidious control of the bio-chip that he’d been able to face his death with some hint that his life had been lead with that. Kenobi couldn’t speculate as to what the clone’s life had been in the Empire but the man he’d known and loved, the one who he’d counted as his closest of friends had certainly embodied the best qualities of the Mandalorian spirit he’d admired so much. 

As Ben stumbled away and his pace began to hasten with each step, the echoes of that long-forgotten prayer for the dead he’d heard repeated countless times began to run through his head. Throughout the course of the war, he'd heard them repeated nightly until the words had been inscribed into his very heart.

He wasn’t even aware of the fact he’d reached his dewback’s side until the great lizard turned and nudged its snot into his stomach. The former Jedi wiped away the tears that had begun to trail down his face without him even noticing and unsteadily dragged himself into the saddle. 

Already, he could hear shouting that indicated the bodies had been discovered and he squeezed his legs around the barrel of his mount and the beast began to move at it’s typical slow, lumbering pace so he squeezed his legs again to spur it into a short burst of speed. Drawbacks weren't built for speed but they were strong and hearty, built for the arid deserts. The fact he wasn’t the only person making their way away from Anchorhead was a blessing in disguise and he made it back to his remote homestead unchallenged.

It was sheer dumb luck that the nomadic tribe of Tusken Raiders that lived in the Dune Sea didn’t spot him because he was so distraught and distracted he wouldn’t have even noticed them and probably would have been sniped right out of his dewback’s saddle.

And maybe that would have been a minor mercy because the dawning realization of what had happened had come home to roost and he found himself wrestling with a dark wash of depression and heartache, unlike anything he’d felt in almost twenty years of exile on this miserable planet. 

His dewback thankfully knew the way home and required little input from its rider. The twin suns had set by the time they reached his homestead and the dewback, recognizing the fact its corral and hopefully, fodder was close at hand, increased its pace despite the dropping temperature. The burst of speed shook Ben out of his thoughts and he finally became cognizant of the fact they were home as his reptilian mount nosed at the gate of its corral with a lowing, hungry noise. 

The aged ex-Jedi slid down from the saddle and the ground rushed up to meet him as his knees buckled beneath his weight and he ended up ass over kettle. Even the prospect of sitting up felt too much to bear and he just lay there in the sand staring up at the stars that twinkled overhead. Only the snuffling of the lizard lipping at his hair and the knowledge that it at least was counting on him to get his ass into gear gave him the energy to pull himself back up to his knees. 

“I’m sorry, old girl.” Using the stirrup for leverage, Kenobi climbed to his feet and went about the process of pulling off the dewback’s tack which he tossed over the fence of the corral carelessly and on miserable autopilot, he went about caring for his mount. He scooped out fodder and once the beast was munching away at its dinner, only then did Kenobi lock the corral gate behind him and made his way towards the dark hollowed out hovel he’d called home for almost two decades. 

He barely made it inside before his strength seemed to drain out of him once more and he found himself sinking to his knees. Within the privacy and safety of his own home, he finally let himself mourn for those he’d killed. Painful sounding, ugly sobs escaped his raw throat as a scream tried to claw its way free of it. 

Ben knew he didn’t look anything like the picture of what a respectable Jedi was supposed to look like. He knew he was supposed to release this pain into the Force just as he’d been taught but it was too much, too overwhelming as a life-time of loss and heartache threatened to bury him under a tsunami of grief. 

How much pain and grief could a human heart be expected to endure before it shattered into a million pieces? How much loss could one person endure before it all became too much? 

Why was he always the one who survived while every single person he’d ever loved died or was lost to him forever? 

These thoughts plagued him as Ben lay there curled up into a fetal ball of pain until he’d finally cried himself out and was so emotionally wrung out he felt numb once more. No, he wasn’t going to die here no matter how much he might crave it. He still had his duty to perform and it wasn’t his time just yet.

Come the morning, he wasn’t surprised to find Luke poking around his canyon, drawn here by the pain he’d no doubt been pouring into the Force the evening before. The boy burned as bright as the twin suns overhead in the Force and was too much for Ben’s wounded and hurt heart to handle so he made himself scarce and hid as the boy approached the homestead. 

Call him a coward but he just couldn’t bear to face him right now. Not when his Force signature burned so bright and so much like Anakin Skywalker had once burned against his senses all those years ago. So he did his best to hide himself from the untrained youth’s senses even as the teen called out for him. 

After a few minutes of frustrated waiting, Luke climbed back into his landspeeder and took off. When he reached Anchorhead he was shocked to hear the rumors and tale that someone had murdered an entire squad of Stormtroopers the day before. 

By the time Luke heard the story, the true number had been exaggerated to include an entire squad of eight troopers. No one could agree on who had killed them if had been some of Jabba’s gangsters, a rogue Tusken Raider, or something else. Luke listened with wide-eyes as he sipped on a glass of cold blue milk as he and his friends gossiped and all thought of old crazy Ben Kenobi slipped out of his mind only to be replaced with talk about the latest Incom model of skyhopper. 

Meanwhile, a hundred kilometers away in a tiny little hovel at the edge of the Dune Sea, the man formerly known as Obi-Wan Kenobi forced himself to go about his day eking out an existence in the harsh expanses of the Tatooine desert. He repaired his Vaporators with the control chip that had miraculously survived the scuffle, treated and bandaged his wounded arm and as the suns started their descent towards the horizon once again he settled in to mediate for the first time in what felt like weeks.

It did little to ease his still broken heart but he found some comfort as he quietly repeated that familiar Mandalorian words of Remembrance. He didn’t say it for himself but for Cody and all the other _vode_ who had gone marching on ahead. When he closed his eyes and formed those familiar words, he could almost picture Cody in his minds-eye. Not as he’d seen him in death so care-worn and exhausted from a life of strife but instead as the once hopeful young man who’d quietly and oh so shyly admitted to him he hoped he could live his life as best he could with honor and glory on that long distant battlefield all those years ago. 

That was the Cody he wanted to hold in his memory. The man he’d loved and cared for as more than just a capable second in command but as a true brother in arms. That was the Cody he was thinking of as his lips formed those well-trodden words of Remembrance. By the time he’d finished the exhausting long-list of those who had died, Ben couldn’t say for certain if he felt any better but he did find it was easier to think about Cody and acknowledge in some awful way, at least he was free now. He knew his friend would never have wanted to live as some slave, yoked to the control of the Empire doing no doubt unspeakable things in the Emperor’s name. 

He knew in his heart of hearts that Cody would have preferred death to that fate and that helped in some miserable way knowing he’d been able to give him that dignity if nothing else. 

And a few weeks later when he rescued Luke Skywalker yet again from the Tusken Raiders whose nomadic wanderings had brought them back closer to his remote homestead, Kenobi couldn’t help but feel the stirring in the Force, the anticipation that something was just over the horizon. He’d kept up the habit of uttering those daily Remembrances. As he and Luke found themselves being spirited away on a beat-up old Corellian YT-1300 light freighter headed towards Alderaan to answer the call of his old friend Bail Organa, it was perhaps a testament to just how strong Kenobi’s exaggerated reputation of being a crazy old hermit stood that Luke Skywalker barely even blinked an eye as crazy old Kenobi closed his eyes around the time the suns would have set on Tatooine and started to mutter strange, foreign words under his breath. 

The boy had never heard Mando’a being spoken because Mandalorians rarely made it as far out as Tatooine or at least, they didn’t travel in the same circles a poor boy from a remote moisture farm was going to travel in so he simply chalked it up to Kenobi’s own eccentricities and let it go without comment. He desperately wanted to ask the old man to teach him more about the Force but Kenobi had unequivocally told him he was tired after their emotionally exhaustive day and had retreated to one of the berths built into the wall of the Falcon’s common area. He’d promised Luke he would show him more about harnessing his newly discovered abilities in the morning and after a few minutes of sulking, the blond youth made his way over to the other berth and crawled into the bunk. 

Luke swore there was no way he would be able to sleep, not with his own internal clock telling him it was barely past sundown back home but as he laid out on the berth, he found exhaustion stealing through him. He let his eyes drift closed as he listened to the soft, barely audible sounds of Kenobi murmuring to himself. It sounded almost like the man was reciting something, a list of what almost sounded like names though none he recognized and as he was drifting off to sleep, the boy’s last thought before he surrendered himself to exhaustion was that he almost thought he heard Kenobi saying his aunt and uncle’s names as well but chalked that up to his tired imagination. And from there, he knew no more as he let sleep steal him and his consciousness away.

**Author's Note:**

> I can't quite say why I felt the need to write this save for the fact the horrible idea of Kenobi being incapable of recognizing Cody even in the Force thanks to the brainwashing came to me out of nowhere. I immediately started shouting at my buddy Lisia who promptly called me Satan and well, I knew it had to be written after that because the angstgoblin that lives in the dark cockles of my black heart started to cackle gleefully. I guess I'll be over on [tumblr](https://bylightofdawn.tumblr.com) living in the dark and listening to MKR if you feel the need to throw things at me.


End file.
